At the Wednesday session, Cabinet approved an amendment to the law on drugs, according to which, each district must have at least one emergency pharmacy that fits in with the opening hours of the particular emergency medical centre in the district. The law will come into force after the Parliament approves it. "There's a need to have one emergency pharmacy on duty," said Health Minister Tomáš Drucker (a Smer-SD nominee) in the past when defending his proposal. In this way the ministry wants to address a problem to which people have been pointing for a long time. "In the evening [patients] often can't get a drug prescribed by a doctor at the emergency medical centre, as pharmacies are closed at such a late time," said Drucker.
The legislative change also amends the way in which public pharmacies are run. The ministry originally wanted pharmacies to be run only by people with a degree in pharmacy. Later, it abandoned the idea due to concerns that the change might be unconstitutional. According to the law currently in place, pharmacies in Slovakia can be run by people without a degree in pharmacy, but the owners must have a designated representative with the respective diploma. The new amendment aims to boost the professional nature of pharmacies by shifting greater responsibility onto professional representatives. In addition, the Health Ministry is toughening up the rules for distributing medicine among pharmacies. It wants to prevent speculators from side-stepping current legislation and buying up medicine from pharmacies in order to export them from Slovakia. If greenlighted by Parliament and the president, the amendment is set to come into force as of June.
